I picked up a Grizzly G1073 bandsaw (2HP, 16”, cast iron everything) on craigslist this weekend for $275, which included about 8 blades, along with a jig and box of blade stock to make your own blades with. The guy who previously owned it took meticulous care of it, it looks like it came straight out of the box with a sprinkling of sawdust and not a spot of rust anywhere.

My question is this, has anyone else out there been successful in making your own blades? What are some issues you’ve run into, tips, etc, and would you recommend it to someone else? I’ve done plenty of electronics and plumbing soldering as well as mig and tig welding, so I’m comfortable with the general process, just wondering about how good of luck people have had with homemade blades vs store bought ones.

5 replies so far

We made up all our blades in the machine shop. It has been a while, but I think it was silver solder that we used. THere was a vice used to hold the blade ends flush. It is important that the ends of the blade stock be ground evenly to assure a good mating surface. After the “weld”, just grind down the surface so you don’t have a rough spot.Bill

Years ago I used a blade welder at work to make blades from stock. Once you got the hang of it there wasn’t too much problem with the blades. Prep was important and cleaning up the finished weld was important.

You Really need a Flash Butt welder to do it right, you can find some used DoAll Blade welders on Ebay. you just but the stoc in 100 foot rolls, cut the band to lenght, and Match the Tooth Spacing (most important). the reall issue is the tooth spacing, it you get it worng the blade can jump. I really think its cheaper and better to go on line to sites like www.sawblade.com and buy them welded to lenght. that way you dont have open coils or the scrap at the end of the coil

Just as stated above. A spot welder (electric) is what we used. Grind the bald stock square on the ends and the device clamps it and turn the switch on. It worked well. If it breaks you can grind it square and weld it again until it dulls.